


Wine and Indecision

by SixDots



Series: Welcome to Rapture [1]
Category: BioShock 1 & 2 (Video Games), BioShock Infinite
Genre: Au where the Lutece's are actually twins, and they also live in Rapture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 16:03:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20641886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SixDots/pseuds/SixDots
Summary: Rosalind Lutece and Julie Langford spend their evening discussing Rosalind's love life





	Wine and Indecision

Julie Langford is just noting down the results of the final tests of the day when she hears the beeping of her intercom system. She has a visitor. The screen shows an image of said visitor, a young woman with neatly pinned back red hair and a bag hung over her shoulder slouching against the side of the tunnel. 

“I’m just finding the button, stop looking so bored” she broadcasts over the intercom, grinning as the girl startles a little, immediately pretending it hadn’t effected her. 

She’s been extra tight on security since the saturnine cult started stealing bits and pieces of her equipment so it takes her a while to unlock the whole door system and even longer to make sure it’s properly shut behind her by which time Rosalind is looking at her disapprovingly.

“I thought I told you to talk to Charles Milton Porter about getting a better security system, one that actually recognises who’s outside”

“I will, I just haven’t got round to it,” she triple checks the door as it closes just to be safe.

“You’re later than usual” She comments noticing the time on the clock. Rosalind has positioned her bag on the table and is pulling a bottle of red wine out of it.

“Fontaine wanted a last minute update on this weeks work” 

“How’s the brute been lately?” Julie swoops in to take the bottle, leading the way for them to move to her own lounge area just off the lab. It’s still got plants everywhere and the occasional piece scientific scribbling but at least there’s a little less of the chemical smell the rest of her lab seems to carry.

“Demanding,” Rosalind immediately drapes herself on the nearest sofa, “He wants everything done weeks before when we agreed, we’ve been working late all week to keep up with it” 

Julie pulls two glasses out of the cupboard and fills them with the wine, handing a glass over to Rosalind who takes a long sip from it, grimacing as she does.

“I swear wine down here only gets worse” She’s swirling it around in the glass as if that will somehow improve the taste.

“You bought it my dear” She takes a sip of her own. It tastes severely watered down but she drinks it anyway. 

“I shan’t be buying it again.” The younger woman continues drinking despite her distaste and Julie grins in amusement.

They mull over the usual topics, discussing Julie’s plants, moaning about their employers and generally catching each other up on the weeks events. It drifts into a comfortable silence for a while, both making their way through the wine and feeling it’s effects. 

It’s become a bit of a routine for them. Every Friday at six, Rosalind will show up with some drink she’s found, sometimes tea in appose to tonight’s wine, and they’ll discuss the various struggles of their scientific careers. Julie enjoys the company and she know’s Rosalind enjoys the time talking to someone else. It’s one of the few times you’ll ever encounter one of the Luteces without the other and, although Rosalind adores her brother, even inseparable siblings need some space to themselves.

“How is Robert?” Julie prompts noticing that the younger woman seems to have zoned out a little.

“Indecisive”

“Nothing new then?” 

Rosalind sighs dramatically,

“He’s grown far too attached to some man who runs a record shop down in Fork Frolic and now he’s constantly worrying over whether to pursue him or not”

“Wouldn’t have taken him for one interested in music, is that an interest you share?” 

“Oh mother had us both learn the piano when we were younger, Robert was far more invested than me”

“Can you still play?”

“Maybe with some practice. Robert prefers listening to playing, says it settles him, he’s forever buying new records” 

“Ah, hence the interest in the shop owner”

“Precisely,” Rosalind picks up the bottle to fill up her glass for the third time, offering to fill Julie’s as she does, “Problem is the man just happens to also be one of Cohen’s disciples, which is not ideal”

“Indeed” 

Julie’s had her fair share of run-ins with Sander Cohen and each time she likes the man even less. From the little she knows of his “disciples” she’s aware he’s rather protective over them.

It’s a shame as, from Rosalind’s previous accounts, she’s aware Robert has a tendency to latch his affection onto one person quite persistently with little chance of him changing his mind. Rosalind had made the comment that “once a thing is on his mind, it will bother him forever”. 

She’s pretty sure the notion applies to both the siblings. Anyhow, It reminds her of the other topic she had wanted to question the girl on.

“And how about your love life my dear” She tries to seem casual as she asks, Rosalind has been rather consistent at avoiding the question in the past.

“What love life, I’m married to science” The response is far to quick and rehearsed. She’s avoiding eye contact, staring into her wine as if it will provide some kind of escape.

“If you’re going to consistently deny it, at least be a little more subtle”

“I have no clue what you are referring to”

“Rosalind, do you remember Ryan’s party”

“Which one, he has so many and all of them equally as dull,”

“The one last weekend,” 

“hmm, that one, don’t recall seeing you there?”

“Of course you wouldn’t, you didn’t take your eyes off Tenenbaum the entire night” 

Julie had attended the event with the hopes of persuading Ryan into giving her extra funding. The persuading had been unsuccessful (all she’d got was a brief lecture on parasites) and the only redeeming feature of the evening had been her encounter with the other Lutece.

She’d been surprised to find him alone although he didn’t look bored at all, far to amused by watching his sister following the scientist all evening.

He’d managed to persuade Julie to join in his observations, hoping to enlist her help in persuading his sister to be little more proactive in her approach. She could see what he meant, there hadn’t been a single moment where Rosalind had not been watching Tenenbaum’s every move that night, always pacing a little behind her as if unsure whether to start a conversation. 

Right now, as the realisation hit her that they’d seen everything, the woman seems to be trying desperately to find some kind of excuse.

“I was watching for an appropriate moment the ask about her work” she leans back in her chair, noticeably fiddling with the frill of the chair.

Julie grins.

“You work in the same lab darling, it’s hardly as if you haven’t asked her about her work before” 

“You don’t know that” Rosalind sits up again.

“Actually I do, Robert’s informed me of your break routine” 

“You and Robert aren’t allowed to gossip about me behind my back” 

“Just ask her to dinner or something!”

“Have you met her Julie, she’s hardly the most social person” Rosalind has slumped forwards cradling her glass.

“And neither are you,” She places her own glass down on the table as the girl watches a shoal of fish passing by beyond the window. 

She’s avoiding eye contact again.

“What’s stopping you?” Julie asks softer this time.

Rosalind look ways from he window but still not as Julie. It’s rare to see much emotion for the woman, generally being one to hold it back and remain a blank slate, but right now it feels as if the shield is about to break.

“When we came to rapture,” she still continues to look away she speaks “obviously we came for the science, for the chance to explore concepts without someone else saying we couldn’t, but also” 

Rosalind pauses to drink the last sip of wine from her glass, pushing the empty cup onto the table next to the bottle.

“The idea of a place where people could do anything and no one would really question it, where I could maybe,” She looks down at her hands picking at her nails, “the possibility that maybe I could love who I wanted and it wouldn’t be odd and now I’ve got that chance and I don’t want to-” 

She looks away out the window again.

“I don’t want to mess that up” 

Julie looks at the girl in front of her, always so unreadable, always trying to present a very specific image of herself. She’s aware Rosalind hasn’t had many friends before her, knows that Robert and her for the longest time had only had each other, can see how much this all means to her.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect Rosalind, thats how relationships are” she puts a hand on her arm.

“I don’t even know if she likes women” The girl mumbles.

“Just take it one step at a time, there’s no rush” 

She smiles at her and Rosalind looks back up at her, still with tired eyes but the smidge of a smile. 

“I know, Robert keeps telling me the same” 

“Good, you’ve got two of us to back you up then”

“You know you’re like the mother I never had” she says a she leans out on the couch, suddenly looking a lot drowsier.

“Dear if I’m your mother figure maybe I should be encouraging you to drink less”

“I take it back” Rosalind mutters as her eyes start to close. 

Julie smiles as she pulling the blanket off the back of the chair and over Rosalind who pulls it over herself, settling herself down to sleep.

“It’ll be fine Rosalind”

She whispers as she turns the light off, the girls eyes already shut as she falls asleep in the chair, the glow of the ocean bright behind her.

**Author's Note:**

> I've got another bit of writing that kind of continues on from this that I'll post some point soon :)


End file.
